The next best thing 4

By Strega

"He knows," Bagheera purred, and Baloo grimaced.

"How did he find out?" growled the bear, and the panther flipped a paw dismissively.

"He said he followed our tracks and careful as we were, when our tracks met man-tracks and only ours continued on he suspected.  But does it really matter?  Now he can force us into a worse deal lest he tell the man-cub.  I already had to feed him a whole human family to buy his silence."

Baloo blinked.  "The woodcutter and his family from the dead-tree hill?"

"That's right," the panther purred.  "I was saving them for a special occasion.  I thought we two could go there some dark night and feast.  By now they are all gone down a tiger's gullet."

"Too bad," Baloo growled.  "They would have been tasty.  That's not the problem now, though."

"No it isn't," Bagheera purred.  The panther flopped down next to the bear, grunting in irritation.  "It is hard enough to keep a secret when only two know. Now it is three. Maybe four if Tabaqui knows. Sooner or later Mowgli is going to find out what we've been doing."

Baloo considered the delicious scent of man-cub and how it led to many a man and woman disappearing down his or Bagheera's throat in Mowgli's stead. They both loved the boy like a son and would never hurt him, but he smelled so enticing that it was either eat him or eat another human to sate their hunger.  As a result he had devoured over a dozen humans and Bagheera even more.  If Kaa had not taught the two of them to swallow prey whole Mowgli would have found the remains and worked it all out long since. Even so they'd had to be more careful as the boy grew and began to ask questions about the great bulges that periodically appeared in their middles.

For a long moment Baloo pondered.  He was a wise old bear and though he lacked Bagheera's hard-earned knowledge of humans - the panther had been born and grown up in a rajah's menagerie after all - he had anticipated something like this happening.  As he lay digesting one human or another he'd had time to considered what to do if Mowgli ever came close to learning what his friends did to protect him.

"It is time for him to go back to the man-folk," Baloo growled.  "He is no longer safe here.  If Shere Khan tells him or he catches us at it it would destroy him."

Bagheera shook his head.  "I thought about that.  Shere Khan lusts after his flesh and has since the boy arrived.  He would follow him and sooner or later catch him."

"Ah," Baloo said.  He smiled sadly.  "I don't want him to leave any more than you do.  But I have a plan."

It was an elaborate plan and took some time to explain, but ultimately Bagheera nodded. While there were many things to go wrong, it might actually work.

So it was that a few days later Tabaqui the jackal was out hunting mice, far from the protection of his master, when suddenly Bagheera loomed out of the shadows.

With a panicked yelp the jackal turned to flee only for a panther-paw to pin him firmly to the dirt.  "Be still," the panther purred.

"Do not hurt me," the jackal whined.  "Shere Khan will kill you if you do."

The panther let out a purring chuckle.  "You know as well as I that he cares nothing for you.  You could kick your last in my belly and he would neither know nor care. If I did not have a message for your master you would be on your way there right now."

"I will deliver your message," said Tabaqui, who through subservience had managed to spend years as a tiger's lackey without getting a trip through the stripey cat's guts and who was equally eager to avoid a trip through the black-furred one. 

"They call a truce," he told the tiger a little later.  "They say something has happened that you must know."

"But why involve the snake," Shere Khan mused after hearing the rest. Kaa was his only real rival in strength in this part of the jungle.  Kaa wasn't big enough - quite - to swallow him, but it it came to a fight they would likely kill each other, Kaa torn apart and himself squeezed to death even as the python died.  And Kaa had taught him to swallow prey whole, which Shere Khan found endlessly amusing. Even now his flanks were lined with fresh fat from a family of four humans he recently swallowed alive.  So though he did not trust the snake - how Mowgli never ended up as a scaly bulge for doing so escaped him - he didn't hate Kaa either.

"Very well," Shere Khan growled.  "A truce it is.  Go and tell them I will come to the snake's land tomorrow night."

And that is how he made a horrifying discovery.  He met Bagheera and Baloo together at the edge of their lands, and with each staying carefully out of reach of the others he padded into the twisted trees of the snake's domain.  As soon as he saw the boy-shaped bulge in Kaa's scaly middle he knew what had happened.

"How dare you," Shere Khan growled.  He sucked in a noseful of air and smelled the familiar succulent scent.  For the boy's whole lifetime he'd looked forward to smelling it one last time as a kicking Mowgli slid helplessly down his throat. He'd planned to swallow air and keep the boy alive as long as possible to enjoy the struggle, the Mowgli-flavored belches.  "He was mine!"

The great snake shrugged a sinuous shrug. "He trusted me," Kaa hissed. The bulge in his middle was so clearly defined that the meal must have taken place recently, probably right before Bagheera sought out Tabaqui.  Another day or two and the shape of shoulders and head and hips would be rounded by digestion and in a week there would be no trace of Mowgli at all.  "He played in my coils.  He was not afraid at all when I coiled him up.  Yesterday I was hungry." 

That was all there was to it.  A cold-blooded stranger to things like love and hate, Kaa would eat anyone if his appetite rose.  Even now the three mammals kept a wary eye on the python lest Kaa begin to move its coils in the mesmerizing way it used to pacify prey.  Only Mowgli's immunity to the trick had kept Bagheera and Baloo from becoming a great double bulge a year or so back and none of them trusted the snake not to try it again.  To a hungry python anyone small enough to swallow is a potential meal. Even its own species was not exempt. The year before Kaa had an disagreement over prey with an almost equally large python.  Each had started at one end of a pig and it was just a question of who would work theirs jaws over the other.   Kaa won that argument.

Baloo and Bagheera were so downcast by the death of the man-cub that despite losing his long-sought-after meal Shere Khan had to smile.  "Well, at least I get something out of all this," Shere Khan growled with a grin. "The knowledge that you failed to protect him.  This could only be better if one of you had weakened and snapped him up."

All right," Bagheera purred.  "You've won.  The man-cub is gone.  Go back to your hunt, stripe walker."

Sat back on his haunches, Shere Khan looked from the bear to the panther. One last time he sucked in the delicious smell of man-cub.  "Ah well, there are always more men, and man-cubs."

The two looked so miserable that he simply could not stop grinning.  "And if you cannot bear to live without your cub, then come to me.  I'll give you a stripey coat to wear and you'll have no more troubles."

Bagheera nodded silently and watched the tiger leave. He could not do as the tiger asked. Were he to go and put his head in Shere Khan's mouth he'd be breaking an agreement to put it in someone else's.

That was step four of the plan accomplished, and the whole thing wrapped up. Step one had started a day before.

"I will explain that we cannot protect him any more," Baloo growled.  "You scout about for the right prey."

It did not take long. Bagheera had his eye on a woodcutter recently moved into their part of the jungle.  He was young and slender, a bit underfed as was the way of many locals. He was also almost exactly Mowgli's size.  Bagheera padded off to the woodcutter's hut and made sure everything he needed was there: mainly freshly washed clothes.  That accomplished he lurked inside the door and awaiting the woodcutter's return.

The yapping of a: dog woke him from a nap an hour later, a moment before the heavy shamble of clumsy human feet would. He had forgotten about the dog and instantly knew he'd made an error.  If it scented him -

But Bagheera was lucky.  The wind was toward the hut from the dog and it padded through the doorway unaware of what waited within.  It had only the briefest of moments to realize its error before his jaws engulfed its head.

Bagheera lifted his prey so scrabbling paws would not give the game away, darted his muzzle forward and swallowed. A dog a quarter his size was rapidly reduced to a great bulge in his dark neckfur. A last great gulp sent the bulge sliding down into his body and Bagheera repressed a belch as he waited for his main target to step through the door.

It was almost too easy.  With the ease of much practice he rose from behind the man as he entered.  Gently he slipped his fangs around the man's neck and clamped down, pulling his prey down to a seated position with his forepaws.  Holding his victim still he carefully throttled him into submission.

Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have bothered. By now he could have the man half swallowed. Something like twenty humans had worn his sleek black fur for as long as it took to digest them but this one was scheduled for a different fate. Despite the drool running down the man's neck and the almost overpowering urge to send the man to join the still-kicking dog in his gut he simply held on until the man was too weak to even lift his head.  Then he scooped up the clothing he'd found earlier with a forepaw and padded three-legged out of the hut, dragging the man with him.

As the man was pulled along Bagheera's dog-filled belly pressed down on him and there was a momentary resurgence in his efforts to escape as he felt the dying struggles of his pet. Lack of air subdued him just as Bagheera finally let the burp bubble up past the neck in his jaws.  Deprived of air the dog soon succumbed, having at least filled his belly enough to make it a little less tempting to bolt down the woodcutter.

Bagheera belched, enjoying the taste.  He very much liked dogs.  Not as much as he liked humans, but he'd take every one he could get. With the growing gurgle of digestion coming from his middle he padded along, easily dragging the man. Half an hour later he met Baloo.

"This will work," the bear growled, and pinned the prey beneath a paw as Bagheera rolled in the dust to get the scent of man off his fur.  "Do the clothes smell of him?"

"Only a little," Bagheera purred.  "They were just cleaned." Just the same they gave the clothes a dust bath as well.  Step One was accomplished.

"Step Two," Baloo growled, and the two of them went to Kaa's lair, dragging the man with them.  Bruised and battered from the long drag he put up little resistance but he stiffened with horror as he looked up and found the python looking him over.

"This is the one?" Kaa hissed, and Baloo nodded.  With no ceremony the python's head slipped forward and Baloo held the man down with a paw as Kaa's jaws unhinged around a human face.

Already throttled nearly to death during the long drag the unfortunate man recovered from the neck bite just as Kaa's jaws began to work forward.  Normally the python would coil up his meal, either squeezing it to death before feeding or simply trapping it before swallowing it alive. In this case Kaa was trying to keep the man's scent off his scales and so Baloo kept him pinned to the dirt even as the python's jaws worked rapidly forward. A small man was no challenge for Kaa's loose maw and soon Baloo took his paw from the human's back lest it - and the rest of him - disappear into the python as well. 

The bear backed away and watched, alert in case Kaa begin the hypnotic movements the python used to lure in prey.  Kaa was not a picky eater and though they had known each other for years, should one or both of them be mesmerized into stepping forward they would follow the man down the python's throat.  It had nearly happened once when Kaa hypnotized a band of Bandar-Log and compelled them to approach. Baloo and Bagheera had been there as well and if Mowgli not been there to break the spell the great bulge that ultimately swelled Kaa's long body would have been more than monkeys in the end.

This time the meal was just a human.  Awake and aware of what was happening to him the man began to thrash and squirm, but he was already half swallowed and it just made the snake's body twitch.  Enough was inside now for Kaa's mighty swallowing muscles to get a grip and the snake slid his head forward, easing its jaws over the kicking legs in one long slide.

When the naked feet slipped out of view Kaa formed an ess in its neck and pushed it down toward its thicker coils.  The squirming bulge was pushed along by the traveling bend in the python's body and only a few minutes after yawning for its meal Kaa settled down with still-squirming lump bulging out its thickest coil.  The woodcutter was strong and desperate to escape but though there were only a few inches of snake between him and the warm night air he could no more free himself than could the humans who kicked their last from beneath Baloo of Bagheera's fur.  Best of all, so carefully had Kaa eaten that the man's scent had gone down its throat along with the man, leaving just a bulge to indicate what was swallowed.

"A fine small meal," Kaa hissed.  "Now go, before I am tempted to take another."

Bagheera nodded and the two of them padded off to meet Mowgli. Behind them the woodcutter squirmed in a slimy tomb, not the first and likely not the last to lie in a long snakey stomach fully aware of what was happening to them but unable to do anything but wait for the snake's digestive system to do its work.

"But I don't want to go," Mowgli complained as he tried on the clothes Bagheera stole for him.  Or at least that was the panther's story.

"Little frog, I do not want you to go either," purred the panther. "But it is time. Shere Khan is more determined than ever to have you and the two of us are not as strong as when you were young.  I will lead you to a man-place I have picked out and come visit you when I can."

"Won't Shere Khan come look for me," Mowgli said reasonably as he tried on a red sarong whose owner no longer needed it due to currently wearing a stylish snake-skin coat.

"Kaa has agreed to say that he ate you," Baloo growled.

"Oh," said Mowgli, who only recently came to realize how close he'd come to a trip down the python's gullet.  Pythons are friendly and trustworthy until they aren't. "I suppose."

Despite his reluctance to leave the jungle he very much liked trying on all the clothing and eventually settled on sandals (hardly needed with his callused feet, but he enjoyed wearing them), a loincloth and smock.  He selected a few other items to take as well, leaving a pile of clothing all well saturated with his scent.

Then Baloo and Bagheera took what would likely be their last walk with Mowgli. Bagheera had picked out a village outside his territory and well past Shere Khan's lands. He knew this area well, having crept out to prey on the occasional human or dog. For several years now he and Baloo had shared Shere Khan's man-eating habits as a substitute for eating the one they really wanted.  The man-cub's scent was so delicious that it was eat him or eat some other human, and since they would never hurt their adopted son others suffered in his stead.  Only their snake-taught ability to swallow large prey whole, and so leave no evidence beyond a temporary belly-bulge, had let them keep it a secret so long.

Mowgli had recently had a great interest in those belly bulges and they had planned to keep away in the future until their meals were digested lest he figure it out. That was in the past now.  It simply wasn't safe for him to stay in the jungle now that Shere Khan had leverage on the two of them. They would either feed increasing numbers of humans to the tiger to buy his silence or simply say goodbye to the man-cub once and for all.  They had chosen the latter.

"See," Bagheera purred, and pointed a paw past the edge of the jungle.  There in a field a girl about Mowgli's age was working.  "I know you've been thinking about human girls lately.  You are at an age when such thoughts start.  Go introduce yourself.  She'll recognize you as a feral child and her family or one of the others will take you in."

Mowgli threw his arms around Bagheera's neck to hug him, and then did the same with Baloo.  It was true, he was ready to leave the jungle, though he would always remember it.  "I will miss you," he said before rising.

"I will come visit if I can," Bagheera purred.  "We will always remember you, little frog."

The two of them watched as Mowgli went to greet the girl. Step Three was done but there was still much to do.  They needed to hide the remaining clothing, call Shere Khan to tell their elaborate lie.  And eventually, not today but eventually, they would need to pay the price they'd agreed to get Kaa to cooperate.

"What is there in this for me," the python had hissed.  "If I eat this other human I am just doing your bidding, aiding your plan.  How do I profit?"

Baloo had considered this.  He was not as young as he once was and arrived at a plan.  "In not too many seasons I will rise one morning, old and weak, and realize that I am soon to die.  When I day comes I will come to you and put my head in your mouth."

The python flicked his tongue with interest.  "And you?" It hissed to Bagheera.

"It will be longer for me," the panther purred. "But I swear that when the day comes for me you will have a meal of panther as well.  Perhaps even on the same day if I find I cannot stand the thought of going on without my friend."

"Very well," hissed Kaa, and shifted its coils.  Instinctively Baloo and Bagheera took a step back.  Together they were a match for the python but the sight of the thick cool scales shifting reminded them how often they had seen them stretched over a bulge as big as either of them.  "It is a deal."

And so it was all accomplished.  An innocent fed to Kaa, Shere Khan successfully misled, and Mowgli sent off to a hopefully happy life with his own kind.  Until the end of their days they must now keep silent about it lest someone like Tabaqui hear and give away the game.  (Bagheera resolved to turn the jackal into a bulge in his ebon bellyfur at the first opportunity.)

They took a last look after Mowgli, who was trying his best to communicate with the girl and two adult humans - presumably the father and mother.  Then they turned back into the jungle.

"That's done," Bagheera said sadly.  "I will miss the little frog.  At least with his scent gone I'll be less tempted to hunt down other humans."

"As far as that goes," growled Baloo, "I have a place I go when I am hungry.  Many fat humans, and no one seems to mind when one goes missing." He licked his chops as he reminisced.  "I could take you there tonight."

Bagheera considered.  He really should stop hunting humans now that Mowgli was gone.  He might eat one the little frog was fond of.  But...he had some idea where Baloo's hunting ground was and it was far from the farm they'd just left.  There was no way Mowgli could have met any of them yet.

"Well," he purred, and licked a drop of saliva from his chops, "Maybe just one."